The Menin Gate Inauguration Ceremony - Sunday 24th July, 1927

Field Marshal Herbert Plumer in 1927. GWPDA

The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was inaugurated on Sunday 24 July, 1927 by Field Marshal Lord Plumer.

General Charles Harington, a colleague and close friend of Field Marshal Plumer,
wrote about the occasion in his book entitled “'Plumer of Messines”. He described a long procession
of relatives winding their way through the Grande Place (the Market Square, now called the Grote Markt in Flemish).
They were making their way to the newly built Menin Gate Memorial to take their places on the eastern side of
the Gate. Flagpoles on the rebuilt buildings around the famous square were hung with black flags.

Following on from the Town Hall the official dignitories included Albert,
King of the Belgians, Field Marshal Lord Plumer and General Foch of France.
Hundreds of local inhabitants, veterans of 1914-1918 and relatives of the fallen British and
Commonwealth troops were gathered in the Grand Place and along the route to the Menin Gate.

On the roadway which crosses the moat at the eastern entrance of the
memorial there was seating facing the memorial for about 160 official
guests and military representatives. On both sides of the seating area
contingents from the Belgian and British Armies were on parade, together
with British and Belgian military bands. A wooden platform for those giving
the speeches was positioned just in front of the eastern arch of the memorial.
Veterans of the Great War wearing civilian clothes and carrying wreaths
were gathered on the pavement under the memorial's central arch.

Relatives of those missing in action visiting Ypres at the inauguration of the Menin Gate
Memorial in July 1927.

Crowds were standing on the ramparts either side of the memorial and
along the road opposite the memorial on the eastern side of the moat.
Several hundred veterans and relatives were crowded into the street leading
to the memorial from the Menin Road. Individuals were in every open window
of the newly built houses overlooking the memorial. Press photographers
stood on walls or ladders to get a good vantage point. Loudspeakers were
set up to enable everyone to hear the ceremony even in the Grande Place.
Millions were also listening to the ceremony which was broadcast on the
wireless in Britain.

View from the north stairway looking towards the south stairway of the Menin Gate.

Recalling the speech given by Lord Plumer as he officially unveiled the
memorial, General Harington commented in his book “Plumer of Messines” about Plumer's natural
ability for public speaking. Harington considered that Plumer's speech
at the Menin Gate was perhaps his greatest effort and that it must have
been a supreme moment in his life. Plumer was standing on the spot where
countless British soldiers had passed through the gateway from Ypres on
their last march to the front line. Both Plumer and Harington had witnessed
the town of Ypres being smashed to pieces. Harington wrote:

“I am sure he was thinking, as we were, of all those Brigade and Battalion
Headquarters which he used to visit living in burrows under those ramparts,
of the casualties incurred nightly by the endless stream of transport
men, their horses and mules - on their nightmare journeys through that
Menin Gate, the star shells, the crackling rifle fire, shell bursts,
plunging horses and dogged Infantrymen. Each gateway a bottle-neck,
registered to an inch by the enemy guns. Every man and animal had to
run the gauntlet both going in and coming out. The Cloth Hall of world
fame. The Cathedral. The Convent. The old Water Tower leaning over like
Pisa, and every other building all in ruins, the old swans still swimming
in the moat...”

Some of the many thousands of names on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing.

According to Harington the most moving part of Lord Plumer's speech was
his attempt to give some comfort to the parents and relatives at the ceremony
of the missing soldiers of the Ypres battlefields. Facing the Ypres Salient
his words were:

“... One of the most tragic features of the Great War was the number of casualties
reported as 'Missing, believed killed'. To their relatives there must
have been added to their grief a tinge of bitterness and a feeling that
everything possible had not been done to recover their loved ones' bodies
and give them reverent burial. That feeling no longer exists; it ceased
to exist when the conditions under which the fighting was being carried
out were realized.

But when peace came and the last ray of hope had been extinguished the void seemed
deeper and the outlook more forlorn for those who had no grave to visit,
no place where they could lay tokens of loving remembrance. ... It was
resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the 'Missing' are known
to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them which
should give expression to the nation's gratitude for their sacrifice
and its sympathy with those who mourned them. A memorial has been erected
which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be
said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today: ‘He
is not missing; he is here’.”

At the end of the service buglers of the Somerset Light Infantry sounded
the “Last Post” and pipers of the Scots Guards, standing on the ramparts,
played a lament.

Related Topics

Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing

View of the Menin Gate Memorial from the north-east, looking at the eastern entrance.

The Memorial to commemorate the names of over 54,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and
Commonwealth Forces who died in the Ypres Salient before 16th August 1917 and who have
no known grave.

Daily Last Post at the Menin Gate Memorial

Buglers of the Last Post Association play Last Post and Réveille every evening at the Menin Gate Memorial. (1)

Every evening at 8 o'clock (20.00 hours) Last Post is played at the Menin Gate Memorial.
This was started in 1927 and it has been played almost every night since except for a period in the
Second World War when Ypres was occupied by German Forces.

To hear a live recording of the Last Post and Réveille played at the Menin Gate go to: